So there you have it - ads are very likely going to be part of Gmail soon. After all, it seems almost silly to not monetize a core app with an absolutely massive install base - between 500 million and a billion. I just hope these ads won't be overly intrusive, and from the looks of things, the Gmail team is approaching the situation with care.

Yes, I do. In particular the mail app itself as it was pre-installed on my phone.

My Galaxy S2 was bought for $500. How the money was distributed is none of my problem. That is between Samsung, Google and the store where I bought it.

As part of that money exchange I have come to expect the pre-installed software to be ad-free, and some amount of free services included for a reasonable time period. This is what the competition has offered for decades now. If Google is not willing to offer me ad-free software I just might take my money elsewhere the next time!

GMail the app is free and is available to be installed on non-certified releases(see Cyanogen)

Completely irrelevant. As a typical end-user might reply: what the hell is Cyanogen? I bought my phone at *insert store name here* and it is a Samsung!